In This Section

More News Sections

Environmental News: Media Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEPress contact: Hamlet Paoletti 310/434-2300 (main), 310/434-2317 (direct); Daniel Hinerfeld 310/434-2303 (direct)If you are not a member of the press, please write to us at nrdcinfo@nrdc.org or see our contact page.

LOS ANGELES (August 3, 2006) -- Beach closings and warnings due to bacterial contamination jumped 50 percent in Los Angeles County last year, hitting a record high for the third consecutive year, according to a new report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Across the country, the number of closing and health advisory days at ocean, bay, and Great Lakes beaches topped 20,000 in 2005 -- the most since NRDC began tracking the problem 16 years ago -- confirming that our nation's beaches continue to suffer from serious water pollution. (Read the report, Testing the Waters.)

NRDC's report tallied 2,213 closing and health advisory days in 2005 for LA County beaches, the highest number since statewide testing standards began six years ago. That means the water at LA County beaches often is dirty enough to cause gastroenteritis, dysentery, hepatitis, respiratory ailments and other serious health problems. Senior citizens, small children, and people with weak immune systems are particularly vulnerable. Across California, the report documented 5,175 closing and health advisory days in 2005, more than a 25 percent increase from 3,985 in 2004.

This year's report includes new information that provides a more alarming picture of the problem. For the first time, NRDC evaluated beachwater quality and found 8 percent of the beachwater samples taken nationwide violated federal health standards. In California, 11 percent of the samples failed to meet the standards.

Current beachwater health standards, however, do not adequately protect the public and need to be updated, according to NRDC. Later today, NRDC will file a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles against the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to set water quality standards adequate to protect beachgoers from waterborne illnesses.

"People are swimming in bacteria at our local beaches and it's making them sick," said David Beckman, director of the Coastal Water Quality Program at NRDC. "Congress told the EPA to implement modern health standards, but the agency has been asleep at the switch and the deadlines have passed without action."

In 2000, Congress passed the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act (BEACH Act), which required the Environmental Protection Agency to revise the current health standards by October 2005. The agency missed the deadline, and now says it will not comply until 2011. NRDC's lawsuit will force EPA to adopt protective standards on a tighter schedule.

A recent study by UCLA and Stanford University scientists showed that pollution at many Southern California beaches is responsible for illnesses in as many as 1.5 million swimmers and bathers each year, with related healthcare and other costs for one illness, gastroenteritis, amounting to tens of millions of dollars. This situation persists even though local agencies project that for less than the cost of a movie ticket per household per year, Los Angeles County could eliminate polluted runoff during the dry months.

"The pollution that fouls our beaches comes from sewers, septic systems, and stormwater runoff from roads and buildings," said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC's Clean Water Project. "Poorly planned development on our coasts has paved over wetlands and other vegetation that soaked up and filtered polluted stormwater."

"These problems are preventable," added NRDC attorney Anjali Jaiswal. "It would be a lot safer to swim if municipalities used soil and vegetation to capture and filter stormwater at its source, and upgraded their aging sewer systems." (Click here for more information on cleaning up stormwater pollution.)

Beach Buddies and Beach Bums

NRDC today announced the cleanest and dirtiest beaches based on the percentage of beachwater samples that violated federal public health standards. This year there are 32 Beach Buddies and 22 Beach Bums. (For more details about each beach, click here.)

Los Angeles County water quality is often so poor that this year NRDC did not bestow its traditional Beach Buddy award to any beach in the county. That award is reserved for communities that monitor beachwater quality regularly, have no violations of federal public health standards, and take significant steps to reduce pollution.

LA County Beach Bums: A number of county beaches, however, qualified as Beach Bum and for dishonorable mention, signifying especially poor water quality. NRDC gave its Beach Bum award -- for beaches where samples violate federal public health standards at least 50 percent of the time -- to one LA County beach:

Will Rogers State Beach (Santa Monica Canyon).

LA County Dishonorable Mention List: Six popular county beaches, at which standards were violated between 33 and 49 percent of the time, are on NRDC's dishonorable mention list:

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.